Getting Started

June 7th, 2012

Hello from sunny California! Today is my fourth day of working at Stanford and I feel like I'm settling in nicely. Things were a little hectic at first--my flight from the intern orientation session in New Mexico was delayed (first due to weather and then due to mechanical problems) so I ended up having to stay overnight in Denver last Saturday. Luckily for me, fellow intern Ayla was on the same flight so I had a travel buddy. Then I was rerouted to San Francisco--originally I was supposed to fly to San Jose--so I spent much of Sunday trying to track down my luggage.

Stanford is a beautiful campus and I'm really enjoying working here so far. All the faculty and grad students I've spoken to have been really friendly and accomodating. In addition to Dr. Klemperer, a grad student named Mairi is overseeing my research, so I've got a number of people to go to for help. Plus, Lily--another IRIS intern!--is also working in my lab, so I have someone to commiserate with and to remind me to update my blog! I've actually run into quite a few Cornell alumni (including Dr. Klemperer), which is always exciting.

I spent the beginning of the week meeting new people, figuring out how to get my laptop into the Stanford wi-fi network (which turned out to be a very non-trivial task), and reading about my project. In the days since, I've become familiarized with SplitLab, a software that analyzes shear wave splitting, which will be my main tool for this project. It's a helpful program when it works properly; unfortunately, I've only gotten it to cooperate for one afternoon so far. I can already tell that SplitLab is going to cause me a lot of frustration in the next few months. I will be using it to analyze SKS shear wave splitting beneath the Ruby Mountain Metamorphic Core Complex in Nevada, trying to map anisotropy in the subsurface and eventually linking this to actual geologic structures.

I guess now would be a good time to discuss a few goals that I've set for myself this summer:
1. Improve knowledge of seismic methodry: how sensors work, how data is collected and interpreted.
2. Gain facility with seismic data interpretation and the necessary software (related: improve computing skills, especially in UNIX and programs like GMT)
3. Learn to connect seismic data to real features; in particular, to relate anisotropy to physical structures.
4. Talk with professors and grad students, and become more comfortable interacting with people in an academic, professional environment.
5. Construct a plan for after graduation next year. This part might involve researching grad schools and/or taking the GRE, even if it seems intimidating right now.
6. Enjoy spending the summer at Stanford! I've never spent more than a week or two at a time on the West Coast and I want to get the full California experience. Some things I want to try: surfing, In-N-Out Burger, and buying/cooking lots of local products.

Another update coming next week!

Comments

Aside from the bumpy flights, it sounds like last week was a really good start. Getting laptops onto the wireless network at Binghamton is also a challenge. I think the IT people have decided that the best way to keep the next work safe is to make it very difficulty to do anything on it
All your goals are great but I want to hear all about the surfing! Just don't surf too much